Career TOOLBox #3: Resume Building – Rise Above The Rest

You’ve established your platform and equipped your career toolbox. Now comes one of the most important steps in your professional journey: building your resume. The sheer thought of this document terrifies many as no one knows where to begin. Or, you may have an existing resume, but one that’s been around longer than the last presidential administration. Either way, you’re looking to position yourself as the success you are and, with very minor exception, resumes are your foot in the door. So take the time to invest in this 4-step exercise to develop the best one to two page representation of your skill set.

Success

While it’s important to be humble in life, during the job hunt, especially in a competitive marketplace, you need to project confidence, strength and accomplishment. When you start making your list of things you’ve done in your past positions, skip the job descriptions and go right for the achievements. Ask yourself this question: How did I make a difference in this role? Ami Nienus, who holds a master in consumer psychology and a Simon MBA, is President and CEO of Strategic Market Research Group. When she hires subcontractors, she specifically looks for candidates that “differentiate themselves with fresh, high-quality and usable ideas to existing business problems.”

Action

Print out your resume and get a highlighter. Play a modern version of the card game Old Maid – start looking for word repetition. You’ll be surprised how many of your favorites will appear multiple times. The general rule of thumb is don’t repeat verbs and, if you have to, don’t repeat within the same job and definitely never in the same bullet point. Invest in a thesaurus, paper or on-line, and start looking up action verbs that best articulate your responsibilities throughout your professional history. Everyone’s managing something or someone. Tell people what you actually do.

Brevity

One of the biggest mistakes people make on their resumes is including their entire life history, thus turning a document that will be skimmed by someone within 30 seconds of time into War and Peace. Think of a film trailer you recently watched in a theater, a trailer that got you so excited that you had to go and spend your hard earned money on a movie ticket. That is exactly what your resume needs to be: a highlight of your best stuff. Once it lands in the right hands and people invite you for an interview, that’s when you get to share your story.

Perfection

Life is not perfect. But your resume needs to be. This means everything’s spelled correctly, formatted consistently and reflected accurately. No typos. No errors. No mistakes. While we are all human creatures, we’re also signal readers, and a hiring manager, whether an academic director, corporate recruiter or even the start-up owner who makes his own copies and saves every paperclip, will often dismiss candidates whose resumes aren’t perfect. Their thought is “If this person doesn’t pay attention to detail with their own work, how can I possibly trust them with mine?” First impressions count.

Finally, take a good look at your resume. And ask yourself this question “Would I hire myself?” Your answer will tell you if you’re on track.

First written in February 2010.  

Reprinted with permission and gratitude from CoolCleveland.com.

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